Ruth, Mother of Kings

Part 1: The In-Law of Oaths

“You never loved him!” growled mother-in-law Naomi. “Now you’re here, pretending to grieve, pretending you aren’t relieved he’s dead. And you bring your lackeys who never accepted my son. They’re pretending to have lost a friend, pretending to feel sorry, faking to care. I see you making eyes at all of the men. Already plotting your next move. At your husband’s funeral, you harlot! Get out! All of you!”

This stabbed Ruth. Guilt and shame shivered her body. The fact that it wasn’t all untrue multiplied the effect.

Ruth’s husband Mahlon died unexpectedly, and his passing was exponentially tragic since Mahlon’s brother recently passed away too.

Naomi, Ruth’s mother-in-law, now lost her only two children. Naomi was a widow herself too. Even worse, Naomi was in a foreign land away from true friends and real family. She was away from God in Israel who may have saved her sons. They were living in Moab.

Naomi and her husband had fled Bethlehem to Moab with their two young sons. They had to leave. A famine had cursed their home city. To save their sons, to give them a chance at love, to guard their children from indentured servitude, Naomi and her husband took the boys southeast to Moab. The sons married Moabite women, Ruth and Oprah.

It was untrue that Ruth never loved Mahlon. It was untrue that Ruth was pretending to grieve. She was still in shock, unsure how to purport oneself as a young widow, unsure if it was all actually real. She married a foreign man who died. Instinctual selfish insecurities about her own future were inevitable. Would Moab take her back, or was she tainted?

The Moabite neighbors that attended the funeral were never friendly with Mahlon. They indeed took advantage of the family’s desperation. They would promise deals only to throw in extra conditions at the last second. They underpaid for Ruth’s husband’s higher-than-average-quality work. They schemed to keep Mahlon and his brother living wage to wage. They assumed Ruth’s marriage to a foreign Israelite was smothered with tropes of cross-cultural troubles. They lusted after Ruth.

Here, at her husband’s funeral, Ruth’s mother-in-law’s words eviscerated Ruth’s psyche. It shattered her self-esteem. Ruth was a good person, but even good people can hurt others. She was a dutiful wife, but she wasn’t blessed with children. She was a respectful daughter-in-law, so she allowed Naomi to lash out. Naomi needed to grieve more than she. Ruth clutched her gold necklace, her engagement present from her late husband, and could hear his voice tenderly beg Ruth to forgive his mother.

Oprah, Naomi’s first deceased son’s widow, tried to deescalate. She mildly admonished Naomi and ostentatiously reassured Ruth. However, Ruth knew Naomi needed space. She obeyed her mother-in-law. She concluded the funeral to give Naomi time with her son’s body.

Ruth sat with Oprah outside. They heard Naomi inside, all alone, talking to her son’s body. They heard her laugh, sing, cry, and yell.

Oprah asked Ruth how Ruth, herself, was holding up. Ruth said she didn’t know. All she did know was that Naomi needed them. Oprah rolled her eyes. Oprah then suggested that Naomi’s overbearing, devouring presence could have created the stress in her own sons that contributed to their untimely deaths. She equivocally stated that Naomi definitely didn’t help. “Always stirring the pot.”

Ruth didn’t admonish her widowed sister-in-law. She knew Oprah was also struggling. Ruth prayed for her husband. She prayed for Oprah’s husband. She prayed for Oprah. She prayed for Naomi. She didn’t pray for herself though. She meditated.

- - -

After days of mourning, Naomi exited the home. She sold all her home’s wares. She sold her favorite gowns. She sold the only two pieces of jewelry she had: two metal bracelets. She hired a guide. Naomi was returning home to Bethlehem.

Naomi gathered her two widowed daughters-in-law. With a face of disgusted indifference and words of malice, she said, “Well, you’ve always wanted to be free of me. Now you are.”

“No, mother,” disagreed Ruth dismayed. Ruth sensed something deeper. Something repressed.

Oprah said, “I know you’re grieving so I’ll be as kind as I can. You always told your sons we didn’t like you, but it was you who didn’t like us. I do wish you well though, Naomi.”

Naomi chuckled and licked her teeth. “No need to relitigate. What’s the point. The law is clear. You’re no longer my problem, and I’m no longer yours. Enjoy your new free lives. I’m sure you’ve known your next husband since even before my sons.”

“Wow,” exclaimed Oprah. “That’s not grief. How long have you been holding that back? You’ve known that before ever knowing us. I wish you well, Naomi, I really do.” Oprah left.

“And what do you have to say?” said Naomi to Ruth.

Ruth didn’t answer. She simply stared into Naomi’s eyes, not knowing what to say and unable to look away.

“Well, I don’t have all day.” Naomi left on foot with her escort.

Every step of Naomi palpitated Ruth’s heart. Naomi’s gait hurt Ruth’s own legs. Her palms were sore. She tried to control breathing, but hiccups choked her. Her ears rang. Teary eyes drained strength from Ruth’s body. She shivered, grunted, and rushed inside. She hurriedly packed a loaf of bread and some figurine idols of her gods. She fiddled her engagement necklace. She sprinted to catch up to Naomi.

“What do you want now?” scoffed Naomi wiping her eyes.

“Mother, I can’t let you travel alone.”

Naomi wiped her eyes again. “This wretched dust! I’ll be cured once I escape this godforsaken Moab.” A tiniest tinkle of hope or fear revealed itself for a split second in Naomi’s eyes. It may have been apprehension. All Ruth knew was it was something trying to hide. It vanished when Naomi found her next complaint. She said, “I’m not paying for him to guide you. I don’t even have the money!”

The guide spoke, “It’s quite alright mam. It’s the same walk for me.” His vulpine smile scanned Ruth head to toe.

Naomi rolled her eyes. “Well, I can’t stop you. You’re free now, remember? You can do whatever you like. You and Oprah are good at that. You’re even free to continue annoying a sad old woman like me. Well, let’s get on with it. Keep up; you never were good at walking.”

The first half of the journey was through Moab to its border with Israel on the Jordan River. Naomi was mostly silently until griping about something. The gentle breeze was too hot. The flat land was a boring walk. Water of Moab wells was dirty.

Ruth couldn’t do anything right. She was rude to the guide if silent. She was flirting if talking to him. Ruth’s bread was stale. If Ruth walked quickly, it was to rid herself of Naomi sooner. If she walked slowly, she was scheming to deny Naomi the one last thing Naomi had in life: her return home.

- - -

They reached a clearing on the morning of the fourth day traveling. A gleeful, mischievous spirit possessed Naomi. Her walking speed doubled. Her annoyance transformed into joy. Every compliment of the river, Bethlehem, Israel, and her home, however, still needed a contrast to the despicable Moab of which Ruth was the embodiment.

Her good mood slowly evaporated as they reached the banks. The water was flowing strongly. “You charlatan! You said the river was low. You said I’d be able to cross.”

The guide said, “It is still low. Waist high. I did say that at harvest time it surges. We’re close to harvest time.”

“Bah,” spat Naomi. “Back to Moab for you. Get.” She shooed the guide away. He departed shaking his head and chuckling.

“What are you doing, momma?”

Naomi had tied her dress around her waist and was already stumbling when testing steps on dry land near the riverbank. “Going home. Has your thick head still not figured it out?”

“You can’t. The current’s too strong.”

“God is with me now that I’m home—What are you doing!?”

“I can’t let you cross alone, mother.”

“Don’t you dare poison our river with your impure body!”

“Mother, please.”

Naomi began a few tepid steps into the River Jordan. Her third step found depth. She was waist high near the banks. “It feels so good. I’m being washed clean. All is being renewed. All is right again—” Naomi slipped.

The river was a seahorse dragging a Naomi like a twitching corpse.

“Mother!” screamed Ruth, or maybe she didn’t. She was already sprinting downstream. Noises of river rapids stopped reaching Ruth’s ears. Her ears only listened for Naomi. Her eyes were a chess master’s, diving fifteen moves ahead, cataloging solid stones and ground for her chase, freeing her vision for Naomi. She flew like a queen. She vaulted like a knight. The whitewater must rise Naomi’s salt and peppered hair eventually. It was her responsibility to find her. It was her failure if she quit.

There she is! Naomi’s hands and feet flopped desperately. Her face squirmed in and out of the water pathetically.

Ruth began to believe in the God of her mother-in-law because the river had a leftward 270 degree-ish bend. Ruth could cut the corner of the peninsula. It was uphill. She sprinted up, legs feeling but ignoring pain. Her lungs were in a debt of breath, delaying the body the bill of insufficient air. All energy must be spent. She summited and shoved her body through thorny bushes, confusing blood into sweat on face and limbs.

She paused at a cliff. She looked up and down river and saw nothing desired. Either she was early or late. She had to choose. If late, she must continue downriver double time. She couldn’t waste time. Every moment doubled her doubt. Why was she waiting! Go upriver, she might be stuck underwater!

Doubt almost won, but Ruth’s intuition was victorious. Naomi was tumbling around the riverbend still close to the bank. But now, Ruth was fifteen feet above, and there was no sandy bank. Ruth had to jump.

She tapped her necklace to the beat of a song her late husband sang at their wedding. She found the timing. Ruth leaped into the river, splashing two body lengths ahead of Naomi. Her velocity plummeted her to the bottom, slamming her ankle into something hard and shredding the tendons we never love until lost.

Ruth sprang up and grabbed her questionably conscious mother-in-law. Ruth spoke, but received no reply. The river didn’t care. It kept shoving mother- and daughter-in-law down and out of the way.

Ruth kicked with her broken ankle. She paddled with one free hand. The other hugged her mother-in-law. Water foreclosed her lungs, but she didn’t stop.

After two- or ten-minutes Ruth had beached with Naomi. Naomi wasn’t moving, wasn’t breathing, wasn’t responding. Ruth took out her idols and begged their intercession. Nothing.

Then, she prayed to Naomi’s God. She only remembered faint phrases from her husband, and she apologized for any incorrect words. She yelled for Him to see His daughter Naomi.

Naomi squirmed and coughed up water. Then she vomited, still on her back, and began choking on it. Ruth flipped Naomi onto her side. She rubbed her mother-in-law, hugged her, and spoke assurances of their safety. Naomi grabbed Ruth’s clothes. She struggled to speak. She looked at Ruth like a scared, helpless daughter that Ruth had never had the chance to soothe herself.

Once enough strength was regained, Naomi cried. “I’m cursed. God hates me.”

“No, mother, that’s not true.”

“It is! No one loves me. God hates me. He sent famine to our home. He exiled us to Moab. He killed my sons. And now he’s done with me. Even my home rejects me.”

“I love you, momma. Me! It was just a river acci—”

“Get away from me! I’m cursed. Everything I do is punished. Save yourself and leave me. I deserve to die!”

“Stop, momma, stop, please.”

“Whadaya want anyway?” came out as one word. “I have nothing, Ruth. Nothing! I am cursed. Save yourself. Haven’t you realized it yet? I’m evil. Do you want to be infected? I cursed everything I touched in my life. I deserve suffering.”

“No, you’re wrong. You aren’t evil. You’re a good person.”

“Why do you stay with me? Why did you risk yourself for me?” Tears, confusion, and desperation disfigured Naomi’s face. They added wrinkles. They turned her blue face and lips pale.

“You’re my family, momma.”

“But you’re not! Not anymore.”

“Yes, I am.”

“The law frees—”

“Stop it! I made an oath, mother! A sacred oath! No law can make me break it. Abandoning you, my mother, would be a prison of guilt. My only freedom is with you.”

- - -

Mother and daughter traversed upriver. Limping Ruth supported an exhausted Naomi. They continued farther north than where the guide left them. They found Moab men with boats who would ferry them for a price.

Naomi lamented. They had no money. Ruth removed her necklace as payment. Naomi protested, but Ruth responded, “It was your son’s gift to me, so kinda’ poetic. It’s mine to do with anyway. I’m free, right?”

Appreciation flooded Naomi’s eyes. A man helped Naomi get into the boat.

The captain quietly told Ruth that this was only enough for one passenger. Ruth rhetorically asked if the man was a Moabite. He confirmed. Ruth checked to see if Naomi was watching. She wasn’t. Ruth took out her Moabite god idols and guilt tripped the man into accepting them as payment. To say such holy idols were insufficient would insult the gods. He had to agree. Ruth limped onto the ferry and joined her mother.

Once back in Naomi’s land, Israel, charity was more generous. An innkeeper gifted the injured women food, water, and lodging.

With physical safety and a fresh relationship, Naomi spoke, “I’m sorry, Ruth.”

“For what?”

“I was nasty to you. I shouldn’t have been. I’m sorry.”

“Oh, well we weren’t the easiest daughters-in-law,” answered Ruth for comic relief.

“You were great. Oprah, don’t get me started.” Mother and daughter smiled together. “But I am sorry, truly.”

“Thank you. That means a lot.”

Naomi was still a mother, meaning she had to explain herself. “It’s, just, Mahlon. He’s my son—or was my son. And when a son tells his mother that his wife doesn’t love him, what is a mother supposed to do?”

Anger, frustration, annoyance, or sadness stood Ruth up. “What do you know?! I’m sick of this. If you’re actually sorry, you’d stop saying that to me.”

Naomi tried to backtrack. “Ok, I’m sorry. I’ll stop. I promise.”

Ruth calmed. She spoke. “I did love Mahlon. I do love him still.”

A teary, almost laughing smile came to Naomi. It was silly to keep up such pretenses after all they’ve been through. “It’s ok, Ruth. You’re a good woman. You don’t have to lie. We don’t have to lie to each other anymore.”

“I’m not lying!” reanimated Ruth briefly. She took a deep breath.

Naomi’s bewilderment manifested in a calm, genuine question. “Then, why did you tell him you didn’t?”

“Momma, I loved him. . . But I was never in love with him. I tried, I really did, but before I met Mahlon, I was in love already. Maybe I still am. I don’t know. But, I married Mahlon, and I’m married into his family. My family now.”

Naomi closed her eyes slowly. “What woman isn’t?. . . in love already, I mean. But why did you tell him? And on the day of your wedding?”

“I made an oath. To be true to my husband in word and deed. He asked me, momma. And, I keep my oaths.”